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In my last post I told you all about my first race of the World Transplant Games, but it’s been over a week now and I’ve been too busy relaxing and recuperating in Iguazu and Buenos Aires to tell you all about my final two days on the track – shame on me! The upside, however, is that I’ve got some great photos to share now that I’m home, though I’ve still not entirely mentally processed the results!

My four track events were nicely split up onto two days – the 1500m and 400m on Friday, and the 800m and 4×400m women’s relay on Saturday afternoon. Having had Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to recover from the road race was also a good thing, especially since I’d tripped before the race and given myself a stiff and sore knee to contend with too.

Friday morning was uncharacteristically cold and windy down at the track, with everyone in the stands huddling under blankets and heavy coats. Since the forecast was warm, I didn’t bring my Team GB sweatshirt and only had my tracksuit over my running vest and shorts – James was freezing, too, so he went out in search of somewhere to buy a sweatshirt or two, and came back two hours later with some, plus gloves and scarves, too – by which point the sun had finally emerged and the Team GB sports therapy unit had already warmed up my muscles with a dolphin rub down, plus loosened up my knee nicely, ready to race. But the wind was still fierce, especially around the back straight, and while watching Ruth win gold in the ladies Race Walk, I watched in horror as a wheelie bin by the stands blew over! And that was in the sheltered side of the track!

So I wasn’t expecting much in the 1500m, but I hit the start line with the other ladies and immediately made a move for the lead and the inside lane. Truth be told, I was really on my own for the whole race, and ran it more like a time trial than the fun strategy game I had with my “nemesis” in Newcastle a few weeks earlier. And every time I ran the back straight and I ran into the wind, it was so tough it felt like I was running uphill, and I could feel my pace hit a brick wall. So by the time I crossed the finish line, I was so convinced that I ran a slow time that I went through the medal ceremony feeling pleased with my gold, but disappointed I didn’t get a good crack at the world record. That is, until about a half hour after the race, when I went to check the official times, noted it down in my “Times to Beat” file on my phone (into which I’d noted my times from the last two British Transplant Games, the winning time from the last World Transplant Games, and the World Record time). Even writing it down, the penny still hadn’t dropped – it wasn’t until someone else on the British team asked what my time was that I actually looked at the line above it in my file and saw that, at 5:36.41, I’d beaten the world record by 1 second!! And that was even with the fierce wind!!

So having had my two best events out of the way and performed better than I had dreamed, I was feeling really relaxed going into the 400m later that afternoon. In the British Games, I run the 200m, but I’m really not as fast across the shorter distances, so I opted to drop it and go for higher quality performances at the World games, but this meant the 400m would now be my shortest, and therefore most brutally fast event. The gun went off, and I basically sprinted this, again dealing with the strong headwind around the back straight finishing first for another gold in 1:09.57 – taking a full 5 seconds off my PB from any of the British games, and only 1 second away from another World Record (damn you, wind!!).

I was initially annoyed that both of my events on the following day were in the late afternoon and only 30 minutes apart(!), but then I’d realised this would allow us to have the first lie-in of our entire trip. So we did just that, and took a taxi to the track from the Games hotel around lunchtime, giving me plenty of time to warm up – only it was hot and sunny and I had to put on sunscreen! I’d say it was the complete opposite to Friday’s weather, but no – that headwind around the back straight was still there, and so again, in the 800m, it was like I was running uphill both times I came around there. I was hoping to have a bit of an opportunity to race with some strategy, but the three other ladies in my age category all pulled out, so I was guaranteed a gold even if I walked it round which of course I’d never do – where’s the fun in that!? So instead I raced the 18-29 year olds, and came in first in 2:42.23, feeling like I’d properly earned it! The 800m is probably the distance I run most often in my track training sessions, and oftentimes I struggle to come in under 3 minutes in practice, so I was really pleased with my time, even if it was essentially just a time trial.

I barely had time to collect my medal on the lonely podium before it was time to meet with my teammates for the women’s 4×400m relay – the last event of the day. We had some troubles fielding a team, what with Ruth away playing badminton doubles at the same time, and many of the sprinters unwilling to run a whole 400m, but eventually we pulled a team together… only to find out that none of the other countries did! So for the second time that afternoon, I found myself running unopposed. We tried to persuade the officials to let us “race” against the men, but were denied for some official reason, leaving us with the best view in the house to cheer the GB men on to an extremely close silver finish behind Iran, and then we hit the track all on our own. I persuaded the other ladies (all sprinters) to treat this as a celebration of all our hard work in training, competing, and recovery, as well as the lives we’d been given by our donors, and we did just that. When my turn came, I ran it at “party pace”, with a massive smile on my face, waving the baton to the crowds as they cheered me on. It truly was a victory lap, and the best possible way to complete my first World Transplant Games.

If you’d like to hear my thoughts about both days of track racing at the end of the second day, you can listen to me speak below:

So my total haul for the games was a remarkable six gold medals (four individual and two team), four World Championships, a World Record, and a World’s Best (there are no official world records for the road race due to changing terrain in each host city, but I ran the fastest recorded time of any woman in any year).

And I got a bouquet of flowers with each gold, so I hope I made the hotel maid (and her mother, sister, friends…) smile, too. It was my first World Transplant Games, and one I’ll always remember – not just for the international friends I made, or the medals I won, or the wonderful people of Argentina, or my chance to finally wear the Team GB vest and represent my country, but because my mom traveled the whole way down from the States and finally got to see me race for the first time. Thanks, Mom.